


First Date

by crewdlydrawn



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), The Dark Knight Rises
Genre: Alcohol, Exactly What It Says on the Tin, First Dates, Fluff, Food, M/M, Nervousness, One Shot, Short, fandomwritingchallenge, no mention of Batman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-24
Updated: 2017-02-24
Packaged: 2018-09-26 16:34:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9911492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crewdlydrawn/pseuds/crewdlydrawn
Summary: John Blake's first time out in public with Bruce Wayne.**For February 2017's Fandom Writing Challenge on tumblr.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thewaynecondition](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewaynecondition/gifts).



> Created for tumblr's fandomwritingchallenge prompts in February, 2017.

Despite how many times he had reminded himself to stop, John had adjusted and fiddled with the cloth napkin in his lap at least two dozen times in the last five minutes.  While he was no stranger to eating out, especially take-out options, he was currently sitting down at a table in a very fancy restaurant in a high-end sector of Gotham City, and was feeling anything but comfortable.

It didn't help that he was there on a date.  A first date.  A first date with Bruce-fucking-Wayne.  While they had somehow managed to arrive, be seated, and order their dinners without excessive staring or mobs of paparazzi, John couldn't help expecting and being on the lookout for the flash of camera bulbs, or eyes that looked his way just a little too long. 

Bruce, on the other hand, seemed relatively at ease.  In fact, he hadn’t stopped looking calmly John’s way despite John’s own darting eyes.  Right that second, as John looked back, as he finally focused on Bruce, the other man’s face was wearing a small smile, ticked to the side, and John could feel the amusement rolling off of his shoulders, even though they remained still. 

“…What?” he asked, forcing himself to sit still for at least three seconds in a row.

A flash of white, and Wayne smiled more fully, plucking his wine glass from the table and using it to gesture towards John.  “For the nerves,” he clarified, taking a sip of the “Riesling” that John had yet to touch. 

John knew next to nothing about wine—he knew there were red kinds and white kinds—and so had only Bruce’s word to go on that his glass contained a sweet taste.  The first sip hitting his tongue was jarring, sharper than he’d imagined, but, after a moment, also sweet, he supposed. 

“Do you like it?”  The question came with expectation, and John found himself floundering slightly.

“Uh… am I supposed to?”  He hadn’t actually meant for the sarcastic words to leave his mouth that way, but they had, and it was far less embarrassing to just own them with a sheepish half-smile instead of backpedaling. 

Bruce, for his part, laughed quite a bit, but mercifully quietly, his shoulders shaking most of the evidence away.  “I’ll take that as a ‘no’,” he started, swallowing another sip from the glass before setting it down.  “But also, no, you’re not ‘supposed to’ like or dislike it.  Everyone has their own preferences.”  From many others, the statement might have sounded haughtier, more of a talking-down tone, but from Bruce, it felt friendly, reassuring.

John couldn’t be quite sure if that was an objective fact or more due to the bias that had already started to grow in his mind in Bruce’s favor.

“Do you drink it a lot?”  John felt it was probably too blunt to ask Bruce if _he_ even liked the taste.  Probably.

Their meals arrived before the answer came, placing a plate of finery in front of John that he couldn’t possibly have exaggerated in his mind, beforehand.  It felt like the final round of a competitive cooking show had been set down for him to judge, only he had no experience to compare it to.

Seeming to wait and make sure John had begun tackling the challenge of his plate before starting on his own, Bruce took a bite before speaking again.  “I drink wine when I end up in places like this, but it’s not a personal favorite, I suppose.”

“Then why drink it?”  Lips pressed closed tightly, John chided himself on his lack of control.  Something about Bruce drew the bluntness out of him.

Another chuckle crackled into Bruce’s cheeks, and John could see a glimpse behind the public curtain of ‘Bruce Wayne, Billionaire’… a glimpse of Bruce Wayne, the person.

“I guess I drink it because it’s part of the deal, part of…” he paused for a moment, seeming to search for the words, “part of putting on a show, you know?”

He did know.  And yet…

“So,” he asked, tilting his glass to each side, just enough to watch the liquid swirl and catch the soft lights littering the room’s ceiling, “are you putting on a show right now?”

Mouth open, Bruce started to answer, then stopped, tilting his head to the side, watching John until he finally looked up.  “I guess I have been,” Bruce admitted more quietly.

“Why?”

Another pause.  “I guess I felt I needed to, maybe.”

“For me, or for you?”  After a moment, John thought to add, “Or for _them_?” punctuated by a swish of his glass in a circle to indicate the rest of the dining room and its occupants.  Less and less of their surroundings played into John’s focus and attention, though he didn’t fully realize it until Bruce’s voice felt like the only thing he could hear.

Eyes never leaving John’s, Bruce gave a small nod.  “Yes.”

There it was.  Both of them, pretending.  It struck John as so typical, yet so ridiculous, that he found himself laughing a little less quietly than Bruce had, though thankfully not loudly enough to garner unwanted attention.  A weight felt as if it had been taken down from his shoulders.

“Okay,” he started, picking up his fork again at last, having only pushed the food around at first, “in light of that,” making a plan, _having_ a plan, lent stability to his voice, and he could see its difference in Bruce’s face as he spoke, “I say we finish dinner, here, but I get to choose where we eat dessert.”

Corners of his mouth tilting into his cheeks, Bruce nodded, looking at John from under dark brows for a moment, dipping his own fork into his plate.  “You have some ideas?”

Having stuffed a bite of creamy seafood into his mouth, John allowed himself to savor the rich taste before swallowing to answer.  “I do.”

John may have spent his official first date with a billionaire at a swanky restaurant, but what he, and later Bruce, firmly considered their _second_ date, later that same evening, took place at a small corner café, not far from where John had grown up, over bites of The World’s Best Coffee Cake TM.

No matter how good or bad it may have tasted, John would always remember it that way.


End file.
